Battery Life and Low Temps
I have been having a ball up at Iris Meadow off of Rock Creek Road, Close to Mammoth Lakes, CA. It's the steeper side of the Sierras just East of Yosemite. It's a little known area comparably, but v...
Forum Discussion
jrnymn7 wrote:
But either way, using a 45 amp charger, with the voltage to get the job done properly in cold temps, it would cost less than a third of that, so about $3.00 in gas... not to mention:
You do realize that a higher voltage charger delivering 45 amps for 2 hours will use about the same fuel from a generator as a lower voltage charger delivering 15 amps for 6 hours from a generator?
For my case I didn't have to buy another charger to get the higher voltages because I already had the ultra-quiet economical generator ... so why not run it for 5-6 hours at only the 15 amps that the batteries will accept at the stock converter's (that was already in the RV) lower voltage.
I think the issue here might be the usual one ... the OP might be in a non-hookup campground (state or federal) that has generator run-time windows maybe only 2-3 hours long ... so a higher voltage charger may be needed to get more amps into the batteries in a shorter time.
I don't always drycamp in places like that with generator run-time restrictions, so running an already-owned generator with an already-owned stock 13.8 volt converter for 5-6 hours makes sense ... especially since I have faster charging AGM batteries anyway. If I was to do extended drycamping in a run-time restricted campground, I'd have to supplement my little generator's time with some big engine idling time to speed up the charging during the run-time window.
The whole point I'm making is that 14.XX charging voltages are not always needed to achieve adequate recharging cycles, while at the same time not necessarily slowly ruining one's batteries.
